The deal was concluded after agreements between S7 and the Rocket and Space Corporation “Energia”, as the “Izvestia” informs, referring to the Director General of RSC “Energia” Vladimir Solntsev.
The Group bought out the cosmodrome, simultaneously covering a part of operating costs. In June 2017, the former owner shall receive the final financial proceeds from the deal, and it will take place immediately after registering that launch platform and the command ship in Liberia.
“S7 has already entered into possession of the “Sea Launch”. For this purpose, it was required to sign a number of documents, and the final one to close the deal was signed in December. S7 has already defrayed some expenses of maintaining floating cosmodrome and infrastructure”, as Mr. Solntsev commented on the deal.
The S7 Group confirmed the information about the contract, but declined to comment on it.
“We made a commitment to register the command ship and towed platform in the Liberian Marine Register. Once this is done, a letter of credit is opened, and we carry out final settlements of the deal. A part of money was already paid by S7 owner Vladislav Filev, and the remaining amount will be transferred to us in June next year. According to plan, the signing of contract with Boeing is scheduled for early January, by up to the 12the day. There is a large volume of documents, and the period of their final preparation was imposed upon holidays, so everything was shifted a bit. Let me remark that the fundamental document is a memorandum of settlement, which was signed by both parties”, as was detailed by the Head of “Energia”.
The contract, which was finally signed, was preceded by a three-year-long litigation. The conflicts were settled just in the early autumn of 2015.
“The sense of the “Sea Launch” acquisition by S7 remains hidden for me. It is unclear how the new owner can ensure project economic return; and this when there are actually no rockets for the floating cosmodrome, while it requires infrastructure maintenance all the time, and in a foreign port. The way of doing business is unclear. Hopefully, we learn more a bit later, and then we will be able to evaluate more meaningfully what happened”, as told by Ivan Moiseyev, the research supervisor of the Space Policy Institute.
